Springfield daily republic. [volume] (Springfield, O. [Ohio]) 1887-1888, 1887-11-29
A SUGAR MAKING PLANT.
THE ADVANCED PROCESS As USED
DOWN IN LOUISIANA.

WHY sugar Planters Are Ioath TO Give
Up tie Old Ways of Making Sugar.
Mysteries of >ucr".s and Giuco.e-Ths
! "Centrifugai.''
! The Magnolia sugar house is generally
| known in Louisiana a. having the best
machinery and all the new processes. lt
! il no; much initiated, for two reasons:
/ First. the conservatism OF the older class
! of planters. which had> them To stick tn
! the methods they understand, and second,
| the fact that the business Of sugar max
! ing has not been sufficiently profitable in
/ recent years to enable planters Of moder-
ate capital to purchase new apparatus.
| They are obliged to hold ON 10 their old
| pans and kettles for want Of money to buy
| new Let us now 90 into the great irregu-
lar brick building. with its three tower
| like chimncys and its general big factory
| air. which contains the sugar making
| plant, promising at the start to 90 through
| hastily. and not 10 bore the reader with
/ details about machinery. or with the fine
4 scientific points nf the business. \ sugar
! planter will talk To you hy the hour
/.
! inverted disqualification. degrees Of vac
uum and polariscope tests, until your
/ brain takes in only Il confusion of words
! and figures. First the owner Of "Magno-
/ lia" calls attention 10 his bagasse burner.
! which makes more than half the steam
used to run the mill Formerly the
bagasse. which is the cane after it has
parted with as much Of its juice as the
/ ,,-in ,xYr pif sar h,lrnal IN n
| furnace To get rid of it or thrown ont on
the levee to help fight off the river from
eating away the bank. Now every eco
nomically managed mill burns it to make
steam by the aid of the draught of
an enormous chimney. The best methoi
/ is to burn it on the CRATES, under which
| air is forced by blower
| The canes, hauled in the big carts from
the fields, are dumped upon an endless
band and carried into the mill, usually
direct to the big iron rollers, but at Mag
nulia first to u shredder" There are
| only two shredders in the State, the ma
chine being n new invention. Its revOly-
| ing teeth chew up the cane into pulp.
| The pulp and juice fall upon "A rubber
! apron which carries them To the mill
| grinding is simply squeezing between
! three or folr sets OF iron rollers. Now
the Juice runs in trough to a strainer,
where IA woman gathers up now and then
I the shreds Of cane remaining and takes
them back TO the mill. Next the juice is
! pumped irto an iron cylinder called
| the Juice heater and heated With eX-
haust steam to 100 dcgs. tbs is a new
| process not much in ne. Next il runs
| into the clariiiers or ';efecatorS, which are
| large iron watts With rows Of steam pipes
! ut the bottom. Here Stacked quickiime is
| added. which brings to the top all iupuri-
! ,ice, to be skinned OF into "a division of
| the pan AT the end. The juice is then
| boiled and brushed with long paddle
| until the bubbles become white, when il is
| allowed 10 settle for fifteen minutes.
! There is Il side operation toT saving the
| sSgar in the skimmirgs by putting them
| through filter presses.
| In the advanced process et Magnolia
! the juice next goes through bone black ill
| ters instead of To the ordinary settling
| tanks. To settle for six or seven hours.
| \ filter is big iron drum contain
| ing 10000 pounds OF animal bone
| black. The Char must he washed with
| hot water every two days and dried in a
| kiln. After iiltc-.ng, the juice, still thin
as when first pressed from the cane, goes
| TO the double elects This is new
| apparatus. resembling two upright boilers
| OF a portable engine. Each cupola like
| machine contains five hundred tubes in
| which the juice is boiled in vacuum by
| exhaust steam. The usual plan is to boil
| in IN open cylindrical PAN having coils Of
stcan pipe at the bottom. Now the juice
goes 10 fresh filters and next 10 the va
| cusm pan, which is not pan.
| but "A big iron cupola shaped cyiin-
| der. with an apparatus for exhau~ting
the air and multltu:linous coils Of steam
| pipe. This is the process requiring most
skil: The chief sugar maker attends to
it himself, watching his vacuum gauge
| and thermometer carefully. and testing
every few minutes his boiling mass by
| drawing out a tube which does not break
the vacuum.
He seeks 10 keep the temperature down
10 40 degs. Ii il is too high some q. the
| surcosc will ''invert' or caramel into
glucose. and the proportion OF sugar will
be lcssencd. First he fills the pan only in
part. Then when he sees fine granula-
tions of sugar AGAINST the light in his test
tube he admits more juice, and thus bniiIs
up the grains little by little To larger size
When sufficiently boiled the thick syrup
Is called the ''Inasse cutie The strike"
Is now done. air is admitted 10
the pan ami the contents are run
If into the ''miXer''-a huge oblony
son pan in which steam arms rcvolyc
<eyt The ''massc cute" falls into the
'centrifugalS," which are sinrn drums
holding about 100 pounds of sugar.
Within the drum is a wire screen basket
revolving at the rate l.GO0 turns per min
ute. The centrifugS force throws ont the
molGsscs through the wire network and
leaves the sugar. Perfectly clear water is
then spurtcd into the drum from syr!nce.
This water is thrown ont through the
sugar, washing out the remaining
culoring matter. The motion Of the
centrifugal is now stopped and the
sugar let out Of trap in the bottom
INTO II screw conveyer, from which Il
bucket land is carried To big bin \
man stands in the bin and shovels the
sugar, rs if it were wheat, into tube un-
der which the barrels are placed one by
one to receive il.
This first product Of the sugar mill
is called ''flrSts," and is the whiicst
and best sugar. The molasses Is
boiled again in the vacuum pan, goes
again through the ceutrifugais and u
light brown sugar called seconds re-
suits. Yet again the remaining molasscs
goes through the pans, but the 'masse
cutie is now sticky and stringy and will
not yield its sugar 10 the centrifugals. 1t
is put into iron tanks oil wheels called
WAGONS each of which holds about
2,500 pounds. and wheeled into the hot
room. The temperature here is from 80
to 100 degs. Here the wagons stand in
closely packed rows for thirty days. The
mass is now very stiff and waxy. 1t is
next thrown into the boiler, stirred up
well and put into the ceItrifuCals with
cold water, which washes out the mo-
lasses. The final remainder of sngar is
called thirds and is of lark brown
color. The separated molasses is of
very poor quality and sells Tor only about
thirteen cents n gallon. DsEllers use ii
10 make alcohol and the glucose manu-
facturerS buy it to give cane flavor 10
to their glucose syrup.-E. V. Smalley in
The Century.
He ate green cucumbers;
They made him quite sick;